“You remember,” he said, “that we recovered the Cartier, and that we searched her papers pretty thoroughly to discover the secret of the steel box. Well, Captain Joe, our old friend from Chicago, has conceived a great liking for the boat, and if you can induce your son to give us the launch, and also to make no trouble for the poor people who will suffer under this charter, we shall consider ourselves amply repaid for all our trouble. It has been a pleasant excursion, anyway.”
“So far as the boat is concerned,” the old man Fontenelle replied, “you are entitled to it as salvage. Besides, now that the charter and the jewels have been discovered, through your agency, the Cartier will no longer be elaborate enough for my son. He will have a handsome yacht built, anyway, so you may as well take the launch. So far as making trouble for those who have occupied our lands for years goes, no one shall suffer except those who combined their wealth to obstruct us.
“And so you see,” he continued, “that the check is yours after all.”
And the old gentleman would not accept “No.” for an answer.
“One thing I should like to know,” Clay said, before leaving Mr. Fontenelle, “and that concerns the mysterious map we received and the manner in which it came into our possession.”
“I can set you right on that point,” the old man said. “The man who gave you the map and who was drowned that same night was long in our employ. He finally became angry at some fancied slight and disappeared taking with him valuable papers. It is believed that the crude map delivered to you was among the papers he took. At any rate, on the day before you saw him, he expressed to a relative remorse at what he had done and promised to restore the papers. How he came to deliver the map to you, knowing the Cartier as well as he did, is something which will never be known.”
The boys left Quebec the next morning without waiting for the return of the men who were still looking for the lost channel on Cartier island. Therefore they never saw either Lawyer Martin or Max again, but they read later in the news dispatches of Max being sentenced to the penitentiary for highway robbery.
The boys went over the old ground on the river again to Ogdensburg, where the Cartier was fully equipped with new electrical apparatus and then the two started away on their long journey up the lakes.
Captain Joe, was, of course, overjoyed at becoming the owner of the launch, which is now one of the show vessels on the South Branch.
Captain Joe, the bulldog, and Teddy when in Chicago alternate between the Rambler and the Cartier, having a welcome on either boat.